February Reads

This update is both late because of megabusyness** and slight because once again I spent the month mainly reading an unpublished novel again, but I did get through a few shorts in recent issues of Interzone, Black Static, Clarkesworld and Lightspeed.

None of the pieces I took in from Clarkesworld really stood out for me this time round, but in Lightspeed I was well impressed by Her Words Like Hunting Vixens Spring by Brooke Bolander, a weird metaphysical western fantasy with a wonderful narrative voice.

The stand out in Interzone #238 was Ray Cluley’s Fata Morgana, a long piece that went to a great detail of effort to build up a convincing portrait of living in a flooded Earth. It’d be a shame if such a thorough piece of world-building were not used again. I for one would love to see this story expanded to novel length.

Last mention is for VH Leslie’s Family Tree in issue 27 of Black Static. After the first page of this one I thought I detected a relatively standard horror plot unfolding, but then came the twist. For me this was a great example of a writer thinking through a story to its logical conclusion and then, not satisfied with that, taking the plot further to bring something new to the world. I’m rarely surprised by horror stories, but I was by this one.